The Epic of Muddrip (Genesis)

Here is the intro to a little story I am writing. It has absolutely nothing to do with the story itself- and, I think that is why it was so fun to write.
TPM (The Parenthetical Man)

The genesis of The Epic of Muddrip
Late one moonless, star-filled evening, Freddie U. Pitchomp hurriedly locked the Krispy Kreme Doughnut shop where he had slaved all day making 18 delicious batches of the internationally renowned doughnuts. He was very tired and more than a little sick (not surprising considering his strong sense of perfectionism which required that he sample at least one doughnut of each batch of doughnuts to verify the quality of the product) and was desperate to get home and watch his favorite TV show—Roswell. Fred actually lived in the town of Roswell, New Mexico and felt that all of his dreams would come true if he could someday have the glory of being chased around town by a flying saucer. Unfortunately for Fred, an alien probe located in the upper stratosphere was performing brain scans on the local inhabitants searching for a human that had either an intense desire to be chased by aliens or the uncanny ability to service Muddrellian star cruisers. A small signal was immediately emitted from the probe and within 7.45 microseconds, a jumbo-class Muddrellian star cruiser was hovering in orbit above Roswell, New Mexico.

Fred commenced his homeward journey (once again hoping that his parents might buy him that moped his friend’s kid brother was selling, seeing as how his twenty-eighth birthday was rapidly approaching), when a bright, eerie blue light enveloped the street where he was walking. Reflexively, he turned his head to identify the source and found himself blinded by the glow. He began running and wishing that he had not wished to be chased around by a flying saucer because this wasn't nearly as much fun as he had fantasized it would. A brick wall happened to be in his aimless trajectory and he knew no more.

He woke up in a small white compartment that looked eerily like the inside of an eggshell. The smell of partially digested Krispy Kreme doughnuts assailed his nostrils; although, he noted with surprise that it smelled a lot better than anything else he had ever partially digested. A small red light began to flicker above him as he attempted to move around, followed by a hissing sound. He felt immediately happy about nothing at all and then embraced the dark comfort of his eyelids.

Once again, he awoke and felt like a much longer time had elapsed. This time he found himself laying on an ovoid table inside another, larger egg-shaped room. He no longer smelled anything (thankfully he thought because he worried about developing a taste aversion to his favorite food, or really food group, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts). As his mental haze began to dissipate, and he began to glancing around the room. The first thing he noticed was that he felt some weird pulling sensations on his body. He realized that his legs were protruding from the arms of his long sleeve shirt and the open neck was providing his nether regions with an unusual draft. His pant's legs were covering his arms and his belt was attached through a few of the belt loops and then wrapped around his back so as to keep them in place. His socks and shoes were deposited on a small oval cart next to the table. The shoes were partially disassembled with the shoe laces weaving in an out in odd places like sea-monsters attempting to subdue a sailing vessel. With a grunt, Fred started moving into a sitting position. The red light flashed again, the hissing sound followed, and Fred found his way back into the peaceful embrace of black.

Approximately, two earth years, to the day, since Fred's departure into the unknown, he found himself walking the familiar trek from his beloved position at the Krispy Kreme Doughnut shop to his home. Five years had elapsed for Fred; but, the promise had been kept and he was once again in his starting place. Fred began running and pelted his way onto the front steps of the home where all of his childhood memories were created. He did not even slow down has he turned the door knob because he was so anxious to surprise his parents with the news that he was back. He had an instantaneous thought of, “when did my parents start locking the door?” before momentum and the fifty pounds he had gained over the past five years caught up with him and propelled him into the door and carried him to that all-to-familiar happy blackness.
When he awoke this time, it was because a very bright light was beaming in his face and he could feel a large pounding happening somewhere behind his eyes. As he peeked out into the world, he saw his dad's big work lamp positioned off to the side. Two men in blue uniforms with shiny, silver badges hesitantly prodded him with the business ends of their nightsticks. By instinct, Fred cringed away; but, met resistance from his arms and legs, which he then noticed were tied to the bed posts by copious amounts of extension cords (his dad was an electrician by trade). Neither officer could have imagined that their first night on the job, assigned to the quietest neighborhood in the area, would have an attempted breaking and entering with the suspect still on the premises.
Two small individuals huddled in the shadowy door way, the shorter one weeping under the arms of the taller, as they tried to get a view of what was going on inside. The realization dawned in Fred's mind that a much heavier, beard-laden oddly dressed son, bursting into the solitude of his long-grieving parents' living room was probably not the best way to initiate his joyous reunion with his family.
After some unpleasant and disbelieving conversation, the officers accepted the adamant intervention of the parents on his behalf because of the accurate response to the question, “how old were you when you were effectively potty trained?” Answer, “7 years, 6 months, and 2 days old.” (His parents were so grateful for the advent of Depends because the diapers just could not contain everything when he passed 4 years old (Fred was a rather large kid)).
Showered by kisses and hugs and water-sodden dish rags to mop up the blood from his face's impact on the front door, Fred was finally able to mumble out a few of the details of his extra-terrestrial abduction.

He related that the aliens were, by and large, pretty nice and that he enjoyed a good portion of his stay with them. He had weekly experimentation appointments that were mandatory. Mostly those involved running through constantly changing mazes. He said that the mazes ended up being his pathway to freedom because the “reward” they were trying to employ to encourage his cooperation had a weird, earwaxy after-taste and that it did not induce the high level of enthusiasm the aliens were hoping to evince. After some frank and open discussions about the testing, Fred recommended that they change the “reward” to something more palatable if they want to get real performance from their experimental subjects. The aliens asked what he had in mind. He replied that he could potentially produce a culinary delight that would far surpass their current inducement. In a rare stroke of brilliance, he forged a contract with the aliens, enforceable by the Interdimensional Body of Contract Enforcement, that he had exclusive rights to the recipe and that he have a highly secured, unsurveillable room where he could develop and produce his delectable creation. Hence, was born Krispy Kreme Interdimentional (Intdl.) (Fred wasn't the most imaginitive businessman).
It took at least 345 variations in order to perfect his doughnut to the caliber of treat he had baked daily on earth. Because of the extreme disparity in ingredient possibilities, his new doughnut was comprised of a substantial quantity of wooly bat guano—but, there was surprisingly little aftertaste. Once the aliens sampled his final product, the item was fast-tracked through the Interdimensional Board of Consumables and Pharmacoactives and received overwhelming approval (despite the rarely reported side effect that emetic emissions smelled slightly of bat guano). The alien Experimental Science Consortium employed it in their maze studies without hesitation and found a stark contrast in their study results.
Fred was never in better shape than when the “reward” was altered; and, he became renowned for his endurance and problem solving skills while maneuvering through the ever-changing labyrinths. An alien child learning marketing strategies in his 3rd year primary school class approached Fred during a brief 5 minute interlude, before he was set to commence a second ten-hour endurance set in the maze. In between sharp inhalations, Fred agreed to allow the student to create a marketing campaign for the doughnut (the child was scanning the new patent submissions and saw an opportunity for his end-of-year project). Once the doughnuts hit the general public, the rest was history.
The now 4th year student allowed Fred to buy into a franchise with the small percentage (0.0001%) residuals that Fred was making off of the patent (the child had also taken a class in finance the previous year). With the proceeds from his franchise, he was able to pay for someone else to run in in the maze for him, and settled down to making doughnuts (and sampling them).
After a couple of years of this, he began to grow quite restless and decided to grow a beard to see what would happen. The beard grew and so did his waist (all of the sampling). He discovered an interest in ancient extra-terrestrial literature. It was here that he came across The Epic of Muddrip. He was fascinated by how it appeared to be a turning point in alien societal development. But, after a few months prodding around in the annals of history, he decided that he would rather be on earth riding a moped (“maybe my parents have saved up enough to purchase me one” was a constant, running theme in his head). So, he decided to apply for an inter-dimensional visa and buy a one-way ticket to earth.
The Experimental Science Consortium pitched a fit when they heard about the application. And, were even more upset when they learned that all of their data from the previous two years was entirely worthless because some other guy was being paid to run in their maze (although, upon reviewing the results, they had to be honest with themselves that they should have picked up on it sooner considering how drastically they deviated from the confidence intervals). They petitioned a denial to the request—which was approved; and were also able to enforce an obscure Interdimensional Body of Contract Enforcement law that stated that, “Any group of scientists (or would-be scientists) that acquires a person or thing for the original purpose of experimentation is the sole proprietor of such individuals and things. And such individuals and things have forfeited any right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as a consequence of their allowing themselves to be abducted in the first place.”
Fred was heart broken. And, found that he was obscenely out of shape and could not even maintain an hour of grueling maze-running a day, much less the 23 hour regimen that is required by current experimental, scientific statutes. One day, during a much more severe gasping episodes in the five minute break between 10 hour endurance sets, a small alien wearing dark sunglasses and flanked by two ridiculously large, hairy, red body guards approached him. He realized it was the marketing director, owner and sole proprietor of Krispy Kreme Interdimensional. He would have been elated to see him had it not been for the fact that his 2 ounce water allotment was deferred because the timed automation was interrupted by the presence of more than one individual (which gives it the identifier that the subject must be receiving manual hydration supplements based on a projected severe level of dehydration). The child related that he was now finishing up his 6th primary grade level and was greatly anticipating the move to secondary education (his exact words were, “if I can become a billionaire in primary school, I can't imagine what can happen in secondary!”) . His economics class had spent a good deal of time on supply-demand curves, and he wanted to know if Fred would sell his franchise; and, more importantly, the patent to the highly addictive doughnuts which he created.
Fred saw this as an opportunity for potential freedom and replied that such sales would only be contingent upon safe delivery back to earth at approximately the same time on earth that he was abducted. The child pulled out his school-issued calculator and performed some blurring calculations. He said the best he could do would be, precisely, a two years time elapse, factoring in the most advanced discoveries in worm-hole traversal. Fred did not see how he had any other bargaining chips, so he accepted the terms. With a greedy glint in his eye (he had only one), the child quickly shook his hand . Unfortunately, the automated resumption system had not been delayed because the visitors departed just prior to its initiation. Fred was once again hoofing it in the maze with a dangerously low quantity of H2O circulating in his body.
One month later (after Fred had shed half of the 100 pounds he had acquired during his glorious interlude of franchise ownership), a small passenger starship departed the Interdimensional Science Consortium headquarters flanked by two large, red and seemingly hairy security vehicles. The drive home was uneventful for Fred. He just kept hoping beyond hope that a small, orange moped was waiting patiently for him in his garage back home.

His parents were mystified by his story and related the details of all of the searches that were performed in the community on his behalf (the most impressive being that of a local Brownies chapter that had mounted a 7 day search and rescue expedition in the near by state park—two of the Brownies had to be airlifted out due to extreme exposure). A common hypothesis that finally won support at the local Sheriff's office and closed his case for good (except in his parents' minds) was that Fred, finally coming to the realization that he was twenty-eight years old, worked as a minimum wage employee at a local food chain, and did not even own a bicycle as a means of transportation, had decided to cross the border into Mexico and attempt to build a bigger and better life for himself.
Fred was just as dumbfounded by this argument, as were his parents, seeing as how he had always been petrified of Mexico; and, even though he had considered drug smuggling as a way to work his way to financial freedom for a brief period of time in his early twenties, he discarded it because he was already a Krispy Kreme junky and knew that the only way to support his habit was by staying in the wonderland of doughnut production and sales.
His reappearance in Roswell and subsequent story about alien abduction created a bit of a media circus for a wearisome twenty-four hours. Unfortunately, given the fact that Roswell has always been a hotbed of interdimensional activity, Fred's story trailed away into history and left him sitting at home, on his bed, wondering what to do with his life. Krispy Kreme doughnuts sent him a gift box and welcome home note; but, did not offer him his former position because, according to corporate mandates, it did not want to involve itself with the baggage that comes with so-called “interdimensional abductees”. Fred decided that he needed some sort of vocation if he was ever going to support his Krispy Kreme habit. As he pondered his existence, he stumbled upon the thought of translating the story of The Epic of Muddrip because it seemed rather interesting and unique and he was probably the only one on earth with an un-pirated copy. So, the arduous and tedious process of translation began. Fred's experiences in the labyrinths and fervent desire for doughnuts provided the stamina he needed to complete the work. A small dark-glasses laden voice in the back of his head told him, “make it three books instead of one. For one thing, you can sell a lot more books; and for another, no one will read a book that is one thousand pages long unless you have been dead for at least 100 years.” That was sound advice in Fred's mind, and so he took it. He bought a used, orange moped with the first disbursement from his publisher.

I have had the distinct pleasure of being his primary editor. He elected to not have his name titled as the official author because, as he so eloquently stated, “Who in the world would buy a book from a person named Pitchomp?”